


stand on the brink of hell, and look awhile

by digitalWaterfall



Series: keep the car running [2]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Alternate Universe - His Dark Materials Fusion, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-04
Updated: 2020-05-29
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:14:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23995840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/digitalWaterfall/pseuds/digitalWaterfall
Summary: Jon receives a new statement.---------“Supplemental,” Jon says into the tape recorder. “I’m not sure why Elias wanted me to listen to this. It seems completely unrelated to any of the other statements we’ve been researching. But apparently this is something the Institute has been ‘looking into’ for a while now. Though I’ve never come across any research about Dust anywhere in the Archives."
Series: keep the car running [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1730341
Comments: 3
Kudos: 36





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place mid-season 2.

Elias is sitting at his desk, apparently oblivious to Jon standing in the doorway of his office. 

“Just knock,” Adoniel hisses. “The sooner we get this over with, the better. In an hour, we’ll be home and out of here.”

Or, more likely, Elias already _has_ noticed him and is making Jon wait just to be annoying. Jon runs a hand through his hair, exhales, and raps firmly on the doorframe.

“Ah, Jon,” says Elias, not looking up from the pad he’s writing on. “Come in, please. How are you?”

As usual, he’s so perfectly calm that Jon’s hackles rise almost immediately. “How do you think I am?”

Elias looks up, giving him a quizzical look. “I’m sure I don’t know--”

“Don’t give me that,” Jon snaps. “I’d be a lot better if I could get some actual information out of you instead of being forced to crawl around in the goddamn tunnels, but you already knew that because you know everything.” 

Adoniel butts her head against him, and Jon snaps his jaw shut. She’s right; there’s no point in telling Elias all this, it’ll only give him extra ammo to use against Jon later. He sighs. “Why am I here? What do you want?”

“To check on you, of course,” Elias says, raising an eyebrow. “Are you so shocked that I would want to ensure the good health of his employees? Especially one as significant as the Archivist?”

Jon snorts. Elias’ jaguar daemon is lying on her side at Elias’ feet, tail twitching ever so slightly, eyes half-lidded. She looks for all the world like a content, oversized housecat. Jon’s not fooled for a second. “If you’ve asked me here, it’s because you want something. You’ve got eyes bloody everywhere, you don’t need me in your office to see how I’m doing. Just tell me why I’m here so I can get back to work.”

“Ah, your… _work_ ,” Elias drawls. His daemon flicks her ear. Jon’s seen Adoniel do the same thing, and takes it for what it is: amusement. “Your little obsession, of course. Tell me, have you managed to alienate _all_ your assistants yet, or have you managed to salvage a few relationships?”

Jon keeps his face as neutral as possible, but Adoniel gives him away, baring her teeth. “It’s not my problem if they get in the way. Finding out who killed Gertrude is more important. Now will you please tell me why I’m here?”

Elias sighs, seeming to sense that Jon’s not planning to rise to the bait. “I have a new statement for you to record. She came in just this morning--”

“Wait, hang on,” Jon interrupts. “She came in this morning? I didn’t see anyone--”

“I took the statement,” Elias says. “It contained information that the Magnus Institute has been pursuing for a very, very long time. It is...significant, and frankly, I did not have time for you to be done with whatever it was you were doing. You’ll find it on your desk. I suggest you listen to it soon. I think you’ll find it illuminating.”

Jon grits his teeth. On one level, he knows it doesn’t really make sense for him to be this angry. Elias’ reasoning makes sense, and more than that, Elias is his boss, someone who doesn’t have to explain himself to his employees. And yet-- he can’t help feeling needled. Like he was owed that statement, somehow. 

Elias’ face softens as he takes in Jon’s expression. “I’m sorry, Jon. I didn’t realize how hungry you were. I would have made more of an attempt to send her to you, had I known.” Jon opens his mouth, but Elias keeps talking. “Nevertheless, it should prove to be quite useful for you. Please do make sure to transcribe it when you’re done, or have one of the assistants do it. You’ll want to send someone after her for a follow-up as well. I did my best to encourage her to leave us some form of contact information, but unfortunately she was quite...resistant.”

“Can’t imagine why,” Jon mutters. “Fine. Was there anything else you wanted to talk to me about, or can I go?”

Elias leans back in his chair. “No, I think that’s sufficient for now.”

Jon can feel Elias’ eyes on him as he leaves. When they’re far enough away to be out of earshot, he exhales, and Adoniel’s tail slowly de-puffs. They don’t say anything until they’re back in their office, when Adoniel hops up on a chair, puts her head on her paws, and says, “What did Elias mean by _hungry_?”

“Who knows what Elias means when he says anything,” Jon says bitterly. “I’d rather not think about it. We’ve got enough stuff to do-- wait, where’s the statement? Didn’t he say it’d be on my desk?”

He’s pushing papers around, trying to find the statement, when a sudden soft knock at the door makes them both jump. “It’s Martin,” Adoniel says.

“Tell him to go away unless he has Elias’ stupid statement,” Jon snaps.

“I do!” Martin says quickly, sounding slightly muffled through the door. “Does that mean I can come in?”

Jon sighs. “Yes, fine, come in.” He moves the pile of papers on his desk to one of its drawers as Martin enters; the untidy heap offends him, but it’s not worth the headache of sorting through now. Not when Elias has practically dangled this statement in front of him like a dog with a steak.

Martin glances at Jon as he hands him the tape. “Wow, Jon, you look--” He catches himself, flushing. “Er, I mean-- you just look a bit tired--”

“Thanks,” says Jon dryly.

Martin starts to say something, and closes his mouth, seeming to realize there’s no saving the conversation. “I could bring you some tea? Or coffee-- I think Sasha has some stashed in the break room somewhere--”

“I’m fine, Martin,” Jon interrupts. What _is_ it with his coworkers today? Why do they all collectively feel the need to drag out meetings with him. “Is there something you needed, or can I get back to work?”

Martin flushes again, fiddling with the cuff of his shirtsleeve. His daemon pokes her head out of his breast pocket to stare dolefully at Jon, who finds himself abruptly embarrassed by her gaze. There’s something in those big black eyes that make him feel somehow reproached.

“No,” Martin says. “Sorry. Have a good day.”

Jon deliberately does not look at Martin as he leaves; instead he opens his laptop and pulls out a notepad and pen from one of the desk drawers. Adoniel, however, keeps her gaze on Martin, her stubby tail twitching in thought. 

“You should be nicer to them,” she says, once Martin and his daemon are gone. “They care about us.”

“That’s their problem, not mine,” Jon says. He picks up the tape and pops it into the tape recorder. Elias’ voice is first, letting him know this is the statement of Helen Richardson, and a woman’s voice follows.

“The first thing I thought when I saw it was, “I’m not supposed to see this.” It was like looking at something holy, and profane, and obscene, and sacred, all at the same time. I don’t know how those scientists look at it all the time without going insane. But maybe it’s easier to see Dust from behind a glass panel in a lab, in a controlled environment, rather than out in the real world, on someone you care about…”

################################################

“Supplemental,” Jon says into the tape recorder. “I’m not sure why Elias wanted me to listen to this. It seems completely unrelated to any of the other statements we’ve been researching. But apparently this is something the Institute has been ‘looking into’ for a while now. Though I’ve never come across any research about Dust anywhere in the Archives.

“I’ve personally never seen Dust, but everything I’ve read about it suggests that the experience of seeing it is not nearly as traumatizing as Ms. Richardson's experience would suggest. And there’s certainly never been any records of people who simply _lack_ Dust. This implies to me that what she was seeing was not actually true Dust, but some other particle.”

He pauses, thinking.

“On the other hand, I have heard studies of odd and unpleasant things that occur when one’s Dust level is artificially decreased, or influenced in some negative way. I find myself thinking back to my encounter with Jane Prentiss-- I can recall with disturbing detail the way her presence impacted my daemon, and the others’…”

Adoniel leans against him, her weight a reassuring presence. Jon sighs.

“Regardless, I find my curiosity piqued, despite this statement’s apparent lack of relation to our work. I’ll send Sasha after Ms. Richardson to follow up on that statement. I feel...relatively confident about her. Confident in her ability to track down this woman, and confident that she didn’t. Er. Murder Gertrude.

“End supplemental.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this work is un-beta'd. if you notice any big mistakes or glaring errors, feel free to drop me a line at [my tumblr, digital-waterfall](http://digital-waterfall.tumblr.com/)!


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Big big thanks to june for proofreading this bad boy!
> 
> Sorry it's so late. :<
> 
> Content warnings for this chapter:  
> -paranoid thoughts (ends at the sentence "She leaves, closing the door softly behind her.")  
> -violence, physical injury and blood (starts at the sentence "There’s a heavy-duty stapler next to his monitor.")

It’s surprisingly difficult to resist the urge to allow Sasha to follow up on the Richardson statement alone. Jon has to force himself to stay away; he knows himself well enough to understand that Sasha will have much better luck coaxing a follow-up out of a reluctant statement-giver, that Jon would only drive her away.

He mostly succeeds in resisting, only texting Sasha every other day instead of every few hours. He’d never thought he’d miss the annoyance of taking statements that are clearly complete fiction, but it’s a nice change from obsessing over Sasha’s efforts.

What’s less reassuring is the discovery that Sasha is sneaking off to _Madame Tussaud’s_ , of all places, on her lunch breaks, and Jon cannot for the life of him figure out why. He really, really doesn’t want to add her back to his list of suspects, but he cannot fathom why anyone would go to a wax museum of their own volition, let alone during the precious little time they have free from their work at the Institute. 

“This stuff doesn’t belong in a tourist trap, it belongs in bloody Artefact Storage,” Jon tells Adoniel one day, swivelling his monitor to show her the cold, wax-shiny eyes of Margaret Thatcher staring at them from the museum’s website. 

“At least she’s only going during lunch,” Adoniel says, not looking up from her grooming. “You’ve got to admit, it’s less suspicious than if she was going at night or something. What if you just _asked_ her, instead of immediately panicking about it?”

Jon’s spared a response when someone knocks on the door, making them both jump. “Come in,” Jon calls, closing the tab for the museum website. 

It’s Sasha, of all people. Jon swallows, praying she hasn’t heard anything important. “I hope you’re here with an update on the Richardson case?”

“Yep,” Sasha says, popping the ‘p’. She places a folder on Jon’s desk. “Got another statement. Even transcribed and formatted it too.”

It’s like a weight lifts off of Jon’s back. “Very good,” he says as casually as possible, doing his best to hide his relief. “Really, Sasha-- thank you.”

Sasha preens a little. “Just doing my job.”

God, _why_ can’t Jon let go of this paranoia? He wants so, so badly to trust her-- not only because she’s an excellent employee, but because she’s maybe the closest thing to a friend he has in this place--

Adoniel opens her mouth, and Jon realizes in a flash that she’s about to ask about the wax museum. “Any-- anything else to add?” he says hurriedly. “How did she look?”

Sasha raises an eyebrow. “Most statement-givers don’t exactly look, you know, _healthy_ afterwards. But I’ve seen worse.” She pauses, thinking.

“Her range,” her ibex daemon chimes in. “That was bizarre.”

“Oh yeah,” Sasha says, frowning. “I’ve never seen _anyone_ with a range like that. She-- when we were through talking, she was in such a hurry to leave that I swear she almost left her daemon behind. She just-- left him at the coffee table and didn’t even notice until I said something. She would’ve just gone through the door without even noticing.”

Jon has no idea what to make of that. “I see. Anything else?”

“I don’t think so.” Sasha gives him a hard look. “Are you going to stop texting me about this case now?”

Jon flushes. “Yes. Er-- sorry about that.”

Her gaze softens. “It’s all right. Go home at a reasonable hour tonight, okay, Jon?”

“All right,” Jon says, not really meaning it. “Thanks, Sasha.”

“No problem. Let me know if you need anything else.”

She leaves, closing the door softly behind her. Jon sighs, reaching down absently to scratch Adoniel behind the ears, and settles down to read the follow-up. It’s significantly more disjointed and rambling than Jon is used to, but he gets through most of it without getting too distracted. 

At the end of it, he clicks on the tape recorder. 

“Supplemental. It appears that Ms. Richardson is continuing to see Dust everywhere she goes. More alarmingly, in my opinion, she crossed paths with not one but two individuals that had daemons, but no Dust whatsoever. All of my research indicates that this is completely impossible, but I suppose that’s par for the course--”

“Well, this is a lovely surprise,” a voice purrs from behind him. 

Jon jumps about a foot in the air. Adoniel whips around, fur standing on end, but there’s no one in sight.

“Hello?” he says, putting a hand on Adoniel’s back. “Is someone there?”

There’s a door in the wall. He’s absolutely, one hundred percent sure there isn’t supposed to be a door there.

“Jon,” Adoniel says, fur still bristling, “there’s a door in the wall.”

“Yes, thank you, I noticed--”

The door creaks open. A crackling, high-pitched static fills the room, and a man emerges, tall and blonde-- probably? Jon’s eyes can’t seem to focus on him long enough to retain any details.

“Can I help you?” Jon asks. “This place is off-limits.”

“I disagree,” the man says. His hands and fingers are long and thin. Like the rest of him, they’re shifting and distorting even as Jon looks at them, but he can clearly make out that they are very, very sharp.

Mouth suddenly dry, he clears his throat. “Who let you in here?”

“ _Let?_ ” The man laughs, and the noise echoes around the tiny office as though it’s coming from half a dozen mouths. “I’m afraid that isn’t how this works.”

“Jon,” Adoniel whispers. She’s looking off to the side, next to the man. Jon follows her gaze. Perched on the man’s shoulder is a cluster of shifting shapes and colors and textures that sends a sharp pain through his skull when he tries to focus on it. The man reaches up to stroke it with one of his wickedly sharp hands, and the cluster leans into the touch. A wave of nausea rolls over Jon as he realizes it’s the man’s daemon.

“You’re him,” he breathes.

“Yes.”

“Michael.”

The man tilts his head. “That _is_ a name, yes.”

Jon swallows, trying not to look at the horrible wrongness of the man’s daemon. “Are you here to kill me?”

Michael laughs again, softly. “No.”

“Oh.” Jon’s not quite sure what answer he was expecting, but it wasn’t that. “Then-- why are you here?”

“I wanted to get a good look at the man who’s so eager to learn of doors and Dust,” Michael says, stroking his daemon. “And I’ve had a recent addition to my...collection. I wanted her to see you for herself.”

“I-- you--” Jon’s not sure where to start. The hissing static is making it hard to think. “You own these doors? They’re made of Dust?”

Michael laughs again. “What a _fascinating_ question! Does your hand in any way own your stomach, or your skin cells? But in any case, it doesn’t matter. Ms. Richardson is mine now.”

Oh God. Jon’s stomach drops. He tries to think, to say something clever or defiant or brave, but all that comes out is, “When?”

“After her little chat with your assistant. Doors can turn up in so many convenient places, and nobody ever notices them. Certainly _she_ didn’t…”

“Let her go,” Jon snaps.

“No,” Michael says cheerfully. “She’s become so marvelously lost, you see, so entangled with Dust that she hardly knows what’s real anymore. She’ll be very, very useful. I’ll be keeping her from now on. But don’t worry! It isn’t like she’s _gone_. She’s just...in here, now.”

Adoniel leaps onto Jon’s desk, ears flat, hissing. Jon’s moving before he even realizes it, heart pounding, glancing around for anything that could possibly serve as a weapon. Michael chuckles. “Are you going to _attack_ me?”

There’s a heavy-duty stapler next to his monitor. Jon grabs it and hurls it at Michael as Adoniel leaps at Michael’s daemon--

Everything goes briefly white. Pain blooms in his hand, his head, his sides. When his vision clears, Adoniel lying dazed at the foot of the bookshelf, and he nearly topples over as the sensation hits him. His hand is throbbing. There’s a clean hole in it, dripping blood onto the dusty grey tiles of the office floor. 

He staggers over to Adoniel, kneeling next to her, burying his good hand in her fur and drawing her close. Gingerly, he wraps his wounded hand in the sleeve of his jumper in a vague attempt to staunch the bleeding.

He looks up at Michael, who’s looking at the blood on its hand with mild curiosity. “Who the hell _are_ you?”

Michael looks down at him as one might look at a rambunctious kitten. “I am not a “who,” Archivist, I am a “what.” A “who” requires a degree of identity I can’t ever retain.”

“So-- Michael isn’t your real name?” 

“There is no such thing as a real name,” Michael says.

Jon resists the urge to scrub at his face. Obscuring his vision in front of this monster would probably result in additional blood loss. “What are you _talking_ about?”

“I am talking about myself. It’s not something I’m used to doing, so I’m sorry if I’m not very good at it.”

It occurs to Jon that he has just been violently injured by this monster and is now having a mostly-calm conversation with it. Everytime he thinks the conversation can’t get any more disconcerting, somehow it manages to. “So you just decided to appear down here and _stab me_?”

“I wanted to _talk_ to you,” Michael says, almost...petulantly? “I intervened, to save you before. I...I’m interested in what happens now.”

“Well, _thank you_ for that,” Jon snaps. “And you still haven’t told me why you intervened at all!”

Michael shrugs. “I’m normally neutral, yes. But the loss of this place would have unbalanced the struggle too early. I’m keen to see how it progresses.”

The _struggle_? “You make it sound like there’s a war.”

Michael laughs, long and loud, like this is the funniest thing it’s ever heard. Jon claps his hands over his ears, wincing at the pain in his hand, and Adoniel hisses. “Then I will say nothing further. I wouldn’t wish to tarnish your ignorance prematurely.” He opens the door. “Goodbye, Archivist.”

“Wait--” Even as he can feel Adoniel yelling at him internally, he pushes himself to his feet with his good hand and staggering towards the door. He stumbles, catching himself on the desk with his injured hand, yelping in pain. “Ow-- Michael? Michael?”

Adoniel stands up, shaking herself, and pads cautiously over to the wall. It’s the same utterly blank, featureless wall that it was ten minutes ago. Jon makes his way back to his desk and collapses in his chair, wrapping his sluggishly bleeding hand in his jumper again. 

Adoniel curls up on his lap, purring. It’s a stress response, but the soft rumble comforts Jon nonetheless. They take a minute to lean into each other until Jon’s heart rate comes down and Adoniel’s bristled fur flattens.

The sound of another knock at his front door almost makes Jon jump out of his skin for the second time that afternoon. It opens without waiting for him to respond. “Jon? Are you okay? I heard some noises…”

It’s Martin. Jon sighs. “Yes, everything’s fine, I just--”

“Why is there blood all over the floor?” Martin narrows his eyes, catching sight of Jon’s hand wrapped in his bloodstained jumper. “Jesus, Jon, what happened to your _hand_?”

“Scissors,” says Adoniel. 

Martin stares at her. “Scissors.”

“Yes,” Jon says shortly. “Tripped. Fell. Cut my hand. Now if you don’t mind, we’re about to head to A&E. You can either help by calling me a ride, or make yourself useful by getting out of the way.” 

Martin flushes. “Right. Sorry. I’ll-- let me get the first aid kit, at least--”

“It’s fine, the bleeding’s mostly stopped.” If Martin gets a look at the perfectly round hole in Jon’s hand, he’s going to have a lot more questions, and Jon _really_ isn’t in the mood. “Just-- call a cab or something, please. It’s a bit hard to use my mobile right now.”

“...Okay.” 

Adoniel nudges him. Jon sighs. “I appreciate the concern. Really. I just...I can handle it myself.”

Martin gives him one last hard look and pulls out his phone, presumably calling an Uber. Jon digs out the first-aid kit he’s kept in his office since Jane Prentiss’ attack, and does his best to wrap his hand in some semblance of a bandage with Adoniel’s help. 

Seven hours and five stitches later, he and his daemon are back in their dingy flat. The wound on his hand is no longer perfectly circular, but under the neat black stitches he can see a jagged shape beginning to creep out from the edges. It’s barely visible, but he has a nasty feeling he knows exactly what shape it will take over the next few days.

Adoniel sniffs it. “Doesn’t smell like infection yet, at least.”

“Bit early to say for sure,” Jon says absently, but he isn’t really worried. The Distortion clearly isn’t planning to kill him anytime soon, so he’s fairly certain it wouldn’t allow any bacteria to enter the wound. “Do we still have that book on Rusakov particles and the many-worlds hypothesis? The Everett one?”

“I think so,” Adoniel says, padding over to the bookshelf. “Yeah, it’s up here.”

“Can you grab it for me?” 

They both know they’re not going to sleep anytime soon, so he might as well get some research done while he’s at it. Adoniel paws at the book, knocks it down, and carries it over to him in her teeth. She curls up next to him as he reads, purring quietly-- a happy sound this time.

Eventually, they fall asleep, and dream of static and doors and a shapeless cluster of fur and feathers.

**Author's Note:**

> come yell with/at me about TMA over at my tumblr, [digital-waterfall!](http://digital-waterfall.tumblr.com/) or talk to me about daemons! i can't get enough of discussing daemon headcanons!


End file.
